CHANCE OF STORMS TODAY: NOAA forecasters say there is a 65% chance of G1-class geomagnetic storms on July 2nd as Earth passes through the magnetized wake of a CME. The CME swept past Earth on July 1st, but did not immediately trigger any geomagnetic disturbances. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras especially in the southern hemisphere where winter darkness favors visibility. Free: Aurora Alerts
NOCTILUCENT CLOUD ACTIVITY: Sky watchers in Europe are reporting bright displays of noctilucent clouds (NLCs) this weekend. "NLCs can't really get any better than this!" says Tomasz Adam of Kraków, Poland. "This morning these wonderful silvery clouds descended over southern Poland, shining so brightly that Venus itself had no chance to appeal to a casual observer's eye."
"The abundance of forms was simply breathtaking," he says. "The display lasted for two hours and towards the end the NLCs almost reached the zenith!"
This and other outbreaks like it are telling us something about the weather in Earth's mesosphere: It's very cold up there. Noctilucent clouds form when summertime wisps of water vapor rise to the top of the atmosphere and wrap specks of meteor smoke with fragile crystals of ice. This process requires temperatures as low as 145 K (-128 C). In early June, an unexpected heat wave in the mesosphere temporarily wiped out noctilucent clouds. Their return proves that the heat wave is over.
Realtime Noctilucent Cloud Photo Gallery
THESE PENDANTS HAVE TOUCHED SPACE: Looking for a far-out gift? On April 15, 2017, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus flew a payload-full of heart-shaped Venus pendants to the stratosphere onboard a high-altitude helium balloon. Here's one floating 111,550 feet above the Sierras of central California:
You can have one for $129.95. Each glittering pendant comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its journey to the stratosphere and back again.
More items from the edge of space may be found in the Earth to Sky Store. All proceeds support atmospheric radiation monitoring and hands-on STEM education.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All proceeds support hands-on STEM education
NASA CREATES ARTIFICIAL 'SPACE CLOUDS': After multiple scrubbed launch attempts over the last 30 days, a Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket finally blasted off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia at 4:25 a.m. on June 29th. The resulting display of "space clouds" was worth the wait:
Christopher Becke captured this star-trailed image from Williamsburg, Virginia. "I was 82 miles from the launch site but had no trouble seeing the rocket or the clouds," he says.
During the 8-minute flight, the rocket deployed 10 canisters about the size of soft drink cans more than 100 miles above Earth's surface. The canisters dispensed barium, strontium and cupric-oxide, which interacted to form blue-green and red vapors visible from New York to North Carolina. According to the space agency, the chemicals "pose[d] no hazard to residents along the mid-Atlantic coast."
"As the canisters fired, the erupting colors were vivid and brilliantly apparent," reports onlooker Susan Milligan of Williamsburg VA. "The photos hardly do them justice."
Such clouds allow scientists on the ground to visually track particle motions at the edge of space, giving them new insights into the dynamics of Earth's ionosphere.
Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery